The Wooden Statue of Our Lady of Akita, Japan.
Photo: 2 November 2015.
Source: Own work.
Author: SICDAMNOME.
(Wikimedia Commons)
The
Akita Apparitions and Sister Sasagawa.
Available on YouTube at
This Article is taken from, and can be read in full at, ROMAN CHRISTENDOM
Our Lady of Akita is the Catholic Title of The Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a wooden statue Venerated by Faithful Japanese, who hold it to be miraculous. The image is known due to The Marian Apparitions reported in 1973 by Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa in the remote area of Yuzawadai, an outskirt of Akita, Japan.
The messages emphasise Prayer (especially Recitation of The Holy Rosary) and Penance, in combination with cryptic visions prophesying Sacerdotal Persecution and Heresy within The Catholic Church.
The Apparitions were unusual in that the weeping statue of The Virgin Mary was broadcast on Japanese national television, and gained further notoriety with the sudden healing of hearing impairment experienced by Sasagawa after the apparitions.
The Apparitions were unusual in that the weeping statue of The Virgin Mary was broadcast on Japanese national television, and gained further notoriety with the sudden healing of hearing impairment experienced by Sasagawa after the apparitions.
The image also became affiliated with the Devotion to Our Lady of All Nations, Venerated in Amsterdam, Holland, with which the image shares close similarities.
The Local Ordinary of the Convent, John Shojiro Ito, Bishop of Niigata, authorised "the Veneration of The Holy Mother of Akita," within The Roman Catholic Diocese of Niigata in a 1984 Pastoral Letter, "while awaiting" a "definitive judgement on this matter" pronounced by The Holy See.
The Local Ordinary of the Convent, John Shojiro Ito, Bishop of Niigata, authorised "the Veneration of The Holy Mother of Akita," within The Roman Catholic Diocese of Niigata in a 1984 Pastoral Letter, "while awaiting" a "definitive judgement on this matter" pronounced by The Holy See.
A request for Canonical Coronation for The Marian Image was formally submitted to The Vatican on 19 July 2002.
